In the field of the disclosure there is, among other devices, a bead massage device described in the patent document published under number FR-2 847 159.
The bead massage device described in this document comprises a vessel in which a large quantity of beads is placed, submerged in a bath, the beads being put into motion by an endless conveyor belt in such a way that the beads are rotationally carried along by the belt and the beads shift in contact with a limb, of which the part to be massaged is submerged in the beads.
The conveyor belt is driven by a roller which also tensions the belt, the upper part of the belt being held in an incurvated position at the bottom of the vessel by means of guides fixed to lateral flanges.
The principle of a massage device of this kind gives highly satisfactory results in terms of massaging.
However, this device has several drawbacks in terms of manufacture, maintenance, cleaning and disinfection.
Indeed, in practice, the guiding and tensioning of the conveyor belt calls for fairly lengthy and painstaking operations. These operations must be performed during the initial assembly of the device in the workshop. These operations therefore tend to take up manpower time which has an impact on the sale price of the device, and this is of course not desirable.
These operations must also be performed during maintenance work on the device. It is necessary to regularly renew the bath in which the beads are submerged, clean the beads themselves (human skin residues may lie in the vessel even after it has been drained) and even disinfect/decontaminate the vessel.
The prior art device referred to here above provides for a system for the circulation and filtering of the aqueous solution in order to filter and remove human tissues, such as dry skin, from the solution.
A lateral hatch is also provided in this device for removing the beads after the vessel of the device has been drained in order to enable the renewal of the beads.
In practice, the vessel needs to be dismounted from the device to extract so that they can be either cleaned and disinfected or replaces or so that the vessel itself can be cleaned/disinfected.
Now, to dismount the vessel, it is necessary to also separate the conveyor belt from its driving, guiding and tensioning system. These dismounting operations are relatively lengthy and complex.
Naturally, the re-mounting of the set and especially the tensioning of the conveyor belt also entails difficulties.